


Blood and Coffee (The Post-it Notes Collection)

by qwerty



Category: Merlin (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, F/F, Post-it Notes, Remix, Vampires
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-03-18
Updated: 2013-03-18
Packaged: 2017-12-04 21:08:40
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,080
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/715117
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/qwerty/pseuds/qwerty
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Quite possibly, the growing number of post-it notes covering everything behind her counter was going to give Elena a complex. Everyone meant well, surely, it was just, there really were a lot of post-it notes.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Blood and Coffee (The Post-it Notes Collection)

**Author's Note:**

  * For [quintenttsy](https://archiveofourown.org/users/quintenttsy/gifts).
  * Inspired by [untitled vampire AU](https://archiveofourown.org/works/587686) by [growlery](https://archiveofourown.org/users/growlery/pseuds/growlery). 



> Note: One line nicked from the original story.

Surprisingly, Elena found that taking the job at the blood clinic meant that she would see less of Gwaine, not more. Not that it was a bad thing, really — Gwaine was a great guy, but a little of him went a long way, sometimes. But when she thought about it, it did make sense. They didn't need that many people at the clinic, and her juggling her uni courses meant she would take more night and weekend shifts, of course, while Gwaine tended to pop in and out whenever he felt like it.

On her first-ever shift, she didn't even get to see him, even though he was supposed to be on the shift directly before hers. He was already gone when Isolde brought her to the front counter, leaving just a little yellow post-it behind. And it made even less sense than usual.

Isolde frowned and took the slip of paper from her, manner not inviting questions. Elena tried putting on a professional, calm smile and turned to face front as the bell jingled with the opening door.

It was a woman, tiny and blonde and beautiful, strolling in with an air of haughty assurance Elena could never pull off if she lived to a hundred. She came right up to the counter, and even though it was high enough to make her look like a child and her ragged golden mop looked like it was attacked with a pair of pruning shears, _and_ she was wearing what looked like a bunch of old things grabbed out from a charity bin, she smiled at Elena like Elena was the dirty-looking ragamuffin, and that just wasn't fair. Elena hadn't even spilt any coffee on herself today. Not yet.

"Who's the newbie, Iss? She looks possessed, did you have her checked for demons?"

Elena opened her mouth to protest, then wilted and looked to Isolde for instructions. Isolde moved forward, just a little. Enough to put Elena marginally behind her, and herself within reach of the stake Elena had just noticed clipped along the underside of the counter. Elena winced a little, and tried not to stare and give away the location of the weapon, preparing to throw herself backwards and out of Isolde's way if needed.

"You're checking in early this week, Vivian," Isolde said mildly. "Need more blood already?"

Vivian waved a hand in front of her face, making a little moue of distaste. "Phoo! How much garlic did you have at dinner today? And it's nothing, I just wanted to chat with Gwaine. See if he knows why the Pendragons are sticking their noses into our businesses. We don't want any trouble with the hunters."

"Gwaine decided to leave early today." She leaned a little closer, exhaled deeply, to Vivian's visible discomfort. Elena tried to hold back the nervous giggle ticking her throat like a particularly squirmy frog. "I will expect you back on Monday, as scheduled."

"Fine, whatever." Vivian pouted, then tilted her head to peek around Isolde at Elena, smiling impishly. "I'll see you around, newbie. If you haven't run off or got yourself bit." She wiggled her fingers in farewell, and strolled out of the clinic as easily as she had come in.

"That's Vivian Olafsdottir." Isolde said, crumpling Gwaine's note and tossing it in the wastebasket. "She will respect the threshold, but don't get too friendly with her anyway. Her sire doesn't like..." She trailed off, looking distant for a moment.

"Humans?" Elena suggested, trying not to fiddle with anything on the counter. She clasped her hands together.

Isolde blinked and refocused on her. "Olaf doesn't like anyone. Vivian wasn't supposed to cross over so young. Come, sit down."

Elena plopped down immediately. "Okay!" She looked up hopefully at Isolde, then shot a nervous glance at the stake in front of her.

"Oh, that." Isolde gave Elena a very quick, almost unnoticeable once-over and shook her head marginally. "You don't need to worry about that. Just an old tradition. Nobody ever uses it these days." And then she picked up the post-it pad and scribbled something, and stuck it to the stake.

Isolde nodded firmly and crossed her arms. While she did normally look competent and like someone who could stick a stake in your chest before you could blink, Elena thought the posture somehow looked stiff and lacking in conviction. "I'll be here anyway. Or if I'm not, there's still Gwaine, or Tris. You'll be fine."

So that was the start of her first shift. By the end of the night, Isolde had added two more post-its to the counter and the pantry's refrigerator.

. 

* * *

Two months in, Elena felt somewhat more confident, having encountered no problems, reduced her coffee intake to three cups a day and only added a new post-it to her collection every other day or so. She wasn't sure what to make of this one, though. Tristan's eyebrows went up when he came up behind her and saw Gwaine's note. Elena managed a wavering smile and, rummaging in the drawer indicated, fished out a shiny new can labelled **_ZAP'EM AWAY GARLIC SPRAY_** without dropping it. Pleased with her success, Elena beamed, shook the can and raised it experimentally.

Tristan turned the can by about forty-five degrees and adjusted her grip. "Like that," he said gravely.

"Oh," Elena said. She glared hard at the can in her hands, trying to memorise how it looked. She set it down, turned around, then spun back and grabbed it off the table, and checked to see she was holding it correctly. All right!

"Very good," Tristan approved, and looked relieved. "You can stick it in the corner there, nobody outside will see it. Just keep the space clear so nothing will block you if you need to grab it."

She preened under his regard, then thought about it and held out the note to him. "I wanted to ask, um. About this..."

Tristan sighed and scratched his fast-greying head. "Well, that. You're new, so we didn't want to drop too much on you at once, but there's been some trouble with hunters lately. The biggest thing is the Pendragon heirs falling out and splintering the organisation. A lot of vampires get caught up between them, and hurt vampires can be a little... jumpy. Bad business, that. "

She hadn't realised the hunters had an organisation. Elena looked down at the note, and at the ZAP'EM can. "Oh. I, um. I just wanted to. I mean, Gwaine — I can read Gwaine's writing!"

Tristan coughed. "Ah. Yes. That. Isolde... taught him to write after the second time he left her a note. So."

"Good to know! Really. Very important. Gwaine should have told me long ago." She nodded earnestly, and for two whole weeks after that, when there was no one in the clinic, Tristan had her practise grab-and-fire with a spray can of lavender air-freshener done up to look like her ZAP'EM. There were also no new post-it notes during that period, apart from one from Isolde, on the pantry window with Isolde's pet pot of basil that she plucked to put in everything.

They kept their practices out of the pantry thereafter.

* * *

One year into her job at the clinic, she met the infamous Arthur Pendragon for the first time, standing over a fallen shape in a dark alley halfway between her shared apartment and uni. He looked more like a vampire than Gwaine managed on his best days — face hard, corpse-white and etched in sharp shadows, hair moon-bright under the flickering streetlights, and her first instinct was to grab her can of ZAP'EM and point it at him, and _his_ response was to point a crossbow at her.

The lumpy form at his feet groaned loudly and flopped over, levering itself onto an elbow to glare blearily at her, then him.

"Ellie! Good girl," Gwaine coughed, spitting up blood. "Pants, stand down, that's Elena."

"P-Pants?" Elena bleated, wavering but keeping the spray can up. 

The pale apparition kicked Gwaine, then lowered his crossbow. "Arthur Pendragon, ma'am."

"Pants," Gwaine corrected, and Pendragon kicked him again. "Oof. He's not dangerous, really."

"Not to humans," Pendragon said. "Tell me where he is, corpse."

"I'm really going to spray you if you don't step away from Gwaine," Elena told him, her hands steadying. "And I'm warning you, getting hit in the face really smarts, even if you're not a vampire. I know."

Gwaine cackled at that, and Pendragon looked at her with an attitude of disbelief, then vanished into the shadows.

"You're not going to find him until he's ready to be found, Pants!" Gwaine called after him. "Trust me, Merlin can take care of himself! Oi!"

Elena kept watch over Gwaine with her ZAP'EM until he finally managed to peel himself off the ground, then walked with him to the clinic, where he sat in a corner nursing a pack of blood while she attended to clinic business for his shift.

The day after, Pendragon turned up with a tall, skinny man in tow, bearing a coffee cheesecake and a can of ZAP'EM, which he set on the counter in front of her while she was still foggily sipping her first cup of the day. He cleared his throat to attract her attention, then simply left without speaking to her, though his dark-haired companion grinned and waved at her as they made themselves scarce. There was a post-it note on the can.

* * *

When Elena graduated, Isolde upgraded her to full shifts while she looked for a job relevant to her degree in Sociology (Human/Metabeing-Relations). Merlin joined them to help out on medical things a few times, and Arthur dropped in with coffee cheesecake and occasionally more ZAP'EM cans, until everyone in the clinic had one, including Gwaine.

She even got to train some of the volunteers and part-timers, and left judicious post-it notes for them, which Isolde and Tristan left alone for the most part, though they occasionally added little comments.

Well, yes, about that. Elena chewed on her pencil and scowled at herself. She was a grown woman, she'd been working in the clinic for four years. She shouldn't have let herself be bowled over like that by a pretty face. If she'd thought about it, no vampire got past their first century being careless, or helpless. It wasn't even a good sob story. “I had a long journey and didn’t prepare sufficiently”? She should have waited for Merlin to come in — he seemed so nice, but he could be absolutely ruthless when necessary — or at least called Arthur to ask before bending the rules for her and giving her blood before all the proper checks were done. She should have let Mithian starve and cry outside the clinic. 

But no, she'd just handed over the blood like that, because a pretty girl batted her lashes at her, and for thanks, Mithian had come back later with another vampire and emptied out their blood cooler, the whole week's worth of supplies. And she'd added insult to injury by leaving a prettily written post-it on Elena's favourite coffee mug — _Thanks! xoxo_. Elena had wibbled a little over the "xoxo" and then put the note in the shredder before she could reconsider, and then regretted it almost immediately after.

And no, Arthur telling her that Mithian had been coerced by his crazy sister into robbing the clinic didn't ease the awful feeling of betrayal at all.

She slapped the folder closed, determined not to look at the unfairly pretty ID photo again, and shoved it under the stack of papers she would have to fill out for her report on The Incident. She should put her mug right over, no, she should pour a whole cup of coffee over Mithian's face and then replace the picture with a picture of a chimpanzee. Except it would be a terrible waste of coffee, and she really wasn't supposed to have more than one cup a day.

Absorbed in her private fuming, Elena belatedly realised that she had missed the door jingling and someone coming in, and looked up at a light tap on the countertop to find a giant Café Albion takeaway cup floating before her. And there was a post-it on the cup.

Mithian smiled at her over the top of the giant cup of coffee, a little shy, a little helpless, and a lot mischievous. Elena looked at the coffee, looked at Mithian, and smiled helplessly back.

**Author's Note:**

> Quintenttsy, I loved the little glimpse of this world you've written too much to let it rest in peace. Hope you will come back to it someday. :)


End file.
